How do you guys explain it when the CPU and GPU clockspeeds reach their expected turbo max under load with no throttling, and temps are low, yet you get 30%-40% fps lower than you used to in all games? Before you think of Gsync, Vsync, drivers, power plans, etc...please continue reading. There seems to be a drop in performance and an artificial cap on framerates in my games now; a cap that was never there. BF3 does not go above 100fps on max settings now dipping to 70, used to be a steady 150fps. Same for other games but at different caps. Benchmarks & stress tests run fine with no crashing but they give low-end results relative to all reviews I found of this laptop. Benchmark scores and in-game video with statistics are posted below.

Things I tried to no avail:
1. Clean Install of windows 10 did not change anything
2. Trying various Nvidia drivers with DDU did not change anything
3. Flashing the BIOS with latest build from MSI website did not change anything
4. GPU/CPU Temps are at 30C-35C when booting the game (very cold in here), and I activate Cooler Boost to keep them under 85C but I still dont reach the original max and steady framerates like I used to
5. Gsync and Vsync are globally off, in each program settings, and in all game settings
6. Power plan is set to high Performance in windows cp and nvidia cp
7. Game mode and Game DVR disabled in Windows Settings (no longer customizable after fall update)

Peculiar Observations:
The on-screen display occasionally shows the "Power Limit" flag while gaming. I assumed this is common in gaming laptops or is it not?

Question Marks For Further Investigation:
Could it be a malfunction in the power adapter? The circuitry in the motherboard? The Intel chipset driver version 10.1.1.42? Can I reset the circuitry without opening the case? I am planning to try a new power adapter yet it costs more than $200 so i got a multimeter to measure mine for any discrepancies. How would you further investigate this?

Thanks Riot83. Below is a video recording of OSD in game plus links to 3DMark Scores. Framelimit in RSST is set to 0 and GPU load in all games is 50%-75% while clock reaches 1900Mhz, avg 1700Mhz.
Thanks Kastriot. I am planning to try a new power adapter yet it costs more than $200 so i got multimeter to measure mine for discrepancies.
Thanks Aura89 but i already tried that and it did not change anything.
Thanks mbk1969, as per original post i do not have overheating issues as far as i can see and MSI installed new heatpipes and fan for me.

If anyone know how to reset the motherboard circuitry without opening the case please let me know.

Ryse Son of Rome: Notice the fps cap limit @64fps. When I move around it dips to 30fps even 10fps minimum. In BF3 it dropped from steady 150fps to a max of 100fps, dipping to 80fps.

Cooler Boost is just the max fan rpm setting on MSI laptops. Has nothing to do with with clockspeeds.

Anyway I wont give MSI AB much attention here because I am having this problem even with AB uninstalled, right after a clean windows installation. Here is my untouched, default MSI burner limit settings:

I have seen this a couple times on two different laptops. I was able to fix it on both laptops by updating the motherboard BIOS, and then updating the chipset drivers right after. It may not be the solution in your case, but I would give that a try.

If it is power limit related, gather the following info and see what happens.

1st: Run CMD as an Administrator
2nd: Navigate to c:\program files\nvidia corporation\nvsmi folder
3rd: To see currently set Power Limit type: nvidia-smi -i 0 --format=csv --query-gpu=power.limit
4th: Type this command for real time power limit monitoring: nvidia-smi -i 0 --loop-ms=1000 --format=csv,noheader --query-gpu=power.draw
(pressing ctrl+c stops the monitoring)
5th: Run a game and get in a situation where the card power limit is impacting performance. Immediately alt+tab back to desktop and press ctrl+c on your monitoring, then note what the max power used was.
6th: Attempt manually assigning a higher power limit power limit via: nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 300 (300 is where you enter the new power limit, adjust as needed to test.)

I feel pretty sure it is power limit related, you may want to ensure power management is set to max performance, both in the OS and in the NV control panel.

Thanks DW75, I already have the latest BIOS for my unit as released by MSI. I will update to Intel Chipset v10.1.1.45 as -Tj- suggested above and will report back to you guys, but I will keep that till the end if you don't mind.

Thanks for not giving up on me C0D3M4N, when I type in the command from step 3, I get an error: power.limit [W] [Not Supported]. Tips?

If you open GPU-z or enable power limit in Afterburner OSD and monitor power limit, does the dismal performance coincide with the power limit occurring?
If it does, I would say you could say with certainty that your GPU is power limited. Curiously though, why would this suddenly occur if it worked fine in the past.
Is there a BIOS setting in the Laptop geared towards GPU power/performance increase?
Last thing, if it did work previously, perhaps rolling back to the same driver removes the limitation somehow?

error: power.limit [W] [Not Supported] just means the GPU was unable to report back Power Limit, for whatever reason.

In Nvidia Control Panel see if you have Power Profile set to Performance.

In afterburner, are you able to enable these settings and restart afterburner to see the power limit slider?

Thanks again C0DM4N, as you can see in my youtube video above, the poor performance is happening all the time right from the start where the FPS is capped at 64fps, used to be 100fps. The Power Limit flag only shows occasionally, for a split second as you can see after I started moving the mouse around. I do not see a direct relation between the occasional Power Limit flag and the consistent poor performance.

Power plan is set to maximum performance in both Nvidia cp and windows cp, as stated in my original post.

MSI Afterburner does not allow me to change the power limit and temp limit, even after I unlock voltage control & monitoring options (and restart) in settings.

Again I already tried a clean install of windows and a clean install of multiple nvidia drivers using DDU but none are solving this issue.

I still appreciate any feedback I can get, but I am now narrowing it down to 2 possibilities in addition to updating the chipset drivers:

1. An Underperforming Power Adapter,(but still I dont get the power limit flag consistently while gaming)
2. An Underperforming CPU creating a bottleneck (although other owners of this laptop dont have this problem, I did not have this problem few weeks ago, so why now?)